Congrats to OP on surviving getting thrown off a cliff.

Not to scrutinize a meme, but can you point to text of this bill which would support what it is implying? Legimiately curious because fuck TikTok, but those changes would certainly give me pause.

Are you are suggesting Blades in the Dark is some kind of derivative of D&D? If so, that is a very hot take. And even if you like 5e, imo, Pathfinder 2e is right there doing the same thing but better.

Personally, I loved the random NPC affinity results in the first game. Then again, I always wind up with the Queen as my beloved and not like… a child, or the blacksmith.

It is crazy that it has become this much of a problem and it feels like it is on almost no one’s radar. Is this even reversible at this point? I assume not, but that it can definitely get worse.

Some people would have laughed you out of the room. A lot of people, myself included, warned that this was the kind of shit we’d spiral into with these microtransactions. It was basically confirmed within a year or two with the absolutely insane amount of money mobile gaming was seeing where the base product was just addictive crap with as many microtransactions shoveled in as possible. These games just completely blew the revenue of actual AAA titles would out of the water. It was basically inevitable and we’re now in a situation where we’ve got a generation of consumers raised on this trash.

This was my thought as well. Pretty sure I already have all of that turned off but I would have done that as part of the install and brief customizing of the UI. Can’t say I ever used a guide or anything, or even considered it unusual for modern software.

Ah, that likely explains it. I know when installing I hit “no” on anything that sounds remotely marketing related and I turned off search and weather because they just don’t add any value and I like a clean screen. So I think the only ads I get are the small, unobtrusive ones on the lock screen, which I can’t say I’m bothered by in the slightest. I barely even notice them since it isn’t like I stare at the lock screen.

I’m so confused by the ads thing. I don’t think I’ve noticed any since upgrading to Win 11. Are they only on certain editions or something?

Yeah. Unpopular opinion, I know, but I really like alignment. It’s pretty easy to say “puts self above others” = evil and “puts others before self” = good.

My quick version of law v chaos is “puts societal structure above individual freedom” = law and “puts individual freedom above societal structure”.

Feels like a framework closer to how people actually behave and doesn’t invite in-party conflict.

I recently picked up Midnight Suns which, to be very clear is not FFT. However, I will say despite the kind of bad story and corny aspects of it, the actual turn based combat is excellent. I thought I would hate it being card-based but it really grew on me a lot. Definitely scratched the FFT itch.

It can be a huge problem. Thankfully, I’ve been using midjourney for character art for a little over a year now. It’s nice. No porn or porn-adjacent art needed. Not that I have a problem with it, I just don’t need it in my tabletop game.

Old games? Let me throw Final Fantasy Tactics in the mix. Easily my favorite game of all time and one of the only ones I consistently come back to, despite releasing in 1997.

If you’re not familiar, FFT is a turn-based tactics game which is very different from other mainline FF games in a lot of ways. The story is one of the best, if not the best, in the FF series. For gameplay, you recruit and manage soldiers which progress using a fairly in-depth job system which is also pretty easy to pick up.

I’m sure you could find a PSX emulator of the original but, honestly, I really recommend the updated War of the Lions edition they did for the PSP. It’s been ported to mobile and is actually a great port. My one tip for anyone who tries it is to make multiple save slots in case you find yourself overwhelmed in a story dungeon/encounter.

Posting here in case a community emerges for DD2. DDDA is wonderful and DD2 is looking like it will blow the first game out of the water. If it is even half as good, it’ll be well-worth the price of admission alone imo.

Responded above but mostly the “every night” bit. That’s not how cycles work. Not saying a woman can’t be getting constant creampies but that’s not exactly automatic when someone is trying for a baby.

Mostly the “every night” part. There are only about 6 days a month when women can get pregnant iirc. And unless she’s getting a random train of dudes, there’s pretty significant diminishing returns on repeated loads (not that they hurt, mind you). It’s just kind of a childish comparison.

I love when this post/thought pops up because it just outs people who have no idea how pregnancy works.

Apologies for the wall of text.

Ehhh almost. The best Disney era stuff has been Mandalorian (S1) and Andor, which had, at best, Filoni consulting. Filoni’s stuff is good quality but it’s also fairly simplistic and self-referential, to the point of being almost masturbatory. I think Clone Wars is the best he’s produced and it’s 95% awful kids show with 5% very high quality storytelling mixed in, but I’ll give the benefit of the doubt since it was literally intended as a kids show.

Prequels and sequels were pretty terrible for opposite reasons, as another poster has already mentioned. The original trilogy is pretty high quality, I don’t think that’s even debatable. While New Hope was a pretty bog-standard chosen one/heroic epic story, and maybe/definitely just a rip-off of Hidden Fortress, it gets all the credit for the blend of Eastern and Western themes and concepts. Additionally, for absolutely stunning special effects for the era. Empire is just objectively a good movie, and is definitely when Star Wars peaked. It’s got excellent writing, directing, and cinematography, and did a phenomenal job maintaining the strengths of New Hope while doing a ton of work developing all of the characters and the universe. Jedi is… okay tbh. I put it about on par with the prequels although the Emperor is my favorite character.

The biggest problem imo with the Disney products lately is exactly that - they are clearly products intended only to capitalize on an already-successful IP, with nothing really to say nor any story to tell. Filoni doesn’t have this problem, but he does have the issues above. If Disney can focus on letting creatives tell the stories they want to tell in the Star Wars Universe instead of just churning out products, I think they’ll be okay.

This would be my absolute dream. I loved BG3 but the weakest part of me was being based on D&D 5e. PF2 is just a better system in pretty much every way imo.

If they could make a PF2 CRPG, that would be incredible.

Gotta be Into Free which was the original main title music from Dragon’s Dogma.

It was removed for Dark Arisen for reasons I am unsure of, so it isn’t even something you can experience without mods.

It is wildly different from the rest of the game’s music but still connected in a way, and sets a very different vibe. Great game, great music.